It strikes me that many of the advances and features we're attributing to CAD per se are actually visualization features or capabilities being added into CAD packages. In other words, if you go back to the SIGGRAPH conferences of a decade ago, you'll see all the 3D and rotating/360-degree view stuff, which is being folded into CAD now. So it's good stuff and I'm not denigrating it at all, just making the point that its roots seem to predate CAD. It's the availability of greater processing power on the desktop which enables these features to come to CAD today.

I'm wondering about the computational requirements of this system, and the required hardware. Apparently, from the website, one needs a higher end PC, Windows 7, and a stereo graphics card, and then you buy the special monitor/interactive screen, plus the stylus and glasses as pictured. So is this mostly off-the-shelf?

I'm not sure engineers are waiting for something like this, Rob, because I'm not sure you can really envision what exactly a holographic view is unless you see it and try it. That said, if a device like this works as promised and the company can gain some traction with a distribution channel and ISV support, I could imagine a host of applications and industries where it could be applied. I don't think it's really industry specific--just another way of looking at virtual images trying to make them more lifelike and helping to avoid some of the physical prototyping stages which is costly.

Interesting technology. What are there some industries where this is likely to get adopted quickly? Are there engineers who have been waiting for this type of technology to solve specific problems? You mentioned medical. Are there others? I can imagine this would have game applications, but that will probably require significant price reductions.

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